American Politics in Fiction

Since even before America became an independent country, novelists have used their storytelling skills to help us understand our system of governance and our relationships with one another—sometimes with humor, sometimes with irony. Political novels have advocated causes or ideas, have recorded successes and issued warnings. They have revealed our flaws and trumpeted our strengths. … Read more

The Families’ Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice

Counter to the national narrative which championed the patriotic manhood of soldiering from the Civil War through the 1920s, Dr. Pinheiro, Jr.’s research reveals that African American veterans and their families’ military experience were much more fraught. Economic and social instability introduced by military service resonated for years and even generations after soldiers left the … Read more

The History of Equality and Accessibility in Public Education

Dr. Pinheiro, Jr. will discuss how various issues (surrounding race, gender, and class) have had a profound impact on public education throughout American history. The presentation highlights a number of historical moments where different historically marginalized groups routinely fought against discriminatory policies and actions that meant privilege public education to a segment of society. Additionally, … Read more

Genocide

In simple terms, genocide is the mass killing of a specific group because of who they are or because of who the killers believe they are.  In its terrible lived realities and its legal definition, genocide is so much more.  As a Holocaust historian, Dr. Gibbs speaks about the origins of the term genocide in … Read more

World War II in Europe

Despite increasing distance in time and the passing of last witnesses and veterans, World War II still defines how Americans see themselves, how they view their own military, and how they think of their role in the world.  The war in Europe, though only part of this worldwide inferno, is at the core of those … Read more

Nazism

What did the National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP, or Nazi Party actually believe?  What was the role of Adolf Hitler in shaping those views, and how did he and others at the top shape and use those ideas to lead Germany to total war and genocide?  As white nationalist and white supremacist groups continue … Read more

Jewish Resistance

For all too long, focus on Holocaust history excluded real explorations of Jewish resistance to Nazi tyranny and mass murder.  The misunderstood reality is that Jews resisted Nazi actions at every turn.  From early legal challenges and protests when it seemed there was still a state to listen, to later escape, evasion, and armed uprisings, … Read more

The Holocaust

Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews and a total of 11 million people, counting all of its chosen so-called racial enemies, from 1933 to 1945.  The German state did this with its own armed forces, the help of collaborators, and the silence of bystanders.  How did the Nazi Party lead a nation to this devastation?  … Read more

The Surprising Story of Charleston and the Carolina LowCountry

Bringing a conference or organization to Charleston? Introduce our city and the Carolina LowCountry with this entertaining, educational talk. Ruth Miller’s program is not “What to see and do,” but rather, sets the historic scene, making your stay here both interesting and worthwhile. The presentation ties over 350 years of local history into the American … Read more

Jack Tales from the Richard Chase Collection

In 1983, while working as a scholar-in-residence for the Tennessee Committee for the Humanities, Dr. Williams had the opportunity to travel around the mountains with Richard Chase, the famous Jack Tale collector. During that time, he discussed Chase’s dialect renditions of the Jack Tales along with a number of  old English fairy tales which Chase discovered … Read more

Ella Baker: the Midwife of the Civil Rights movement

The social, economic, and political landscape of this country were forever changed by the Civil Rights movement. The men we have come to know and appreciated were not alone; women played a big part in this great change. In review of recent events, this historical presentation revisits the significant role Ella Baker and other women … Read more

Madam C.J. Walker

Madam C.J. Walker was a businesswoman and activist in the age of Booker T. Washington. This is my story of a self-made millionaire and her impact on black life and culture.

Running with Bulls and The Sun Also Rises

The key scenes in the novel that launched Hemingway’s career take place in Pamplona, Spain, which is world famous for the running of the bulls every morning of the week-long Fiesta of San Fermin. As a devoted fan who had taught The Sun Also Rises for twenty years, Deno Trakas went to Pamplona to run with the … Read more

A Reading from and Discussion of Messenger from Mystery

Novelist Sterling Watson calls my book “a taut page-turner about love and death on the dark side of international education” featuring a “forbidden affair of an American professor and his sultry Iranian student, the Hitchcockian suspense of men and women on the run for their lives in the world’s most dangerous places, and a cast … Read more

The History of Black Children’s Literature

This presentation begins with late 19th century Negro children’s literature to the evolution of the present-day Black children’s literature and features a colorful Power Point.

From Gone with the Wind to Steel Magnolias: In Search of the Real Southern Woman

This entertaining presentation, based on the presenter’s research on Southern women, explores the 19th-century myth of “the Southern lady” and its predominance in popular culture then and now in contrast to the realistic qualities of diverse women of the South from the past into the present.  Audience participation is encouraged.

Cherokee Women—Invincible Spirits

An exploration of the lives of Cherokee women from the time before Europeans arrived in the Americas to the twenty-first century.  Using Cherokee myths, visual images, and artifacts crafted by the hands of Cherokee women, the speaker will weave a story of some of the most powerful women who have walked the earth.  Their bravery, … Read more

A visit from Dr. Ernest Everett Just, Research Scientist

This performance, in which Donald Sweeper portrays Dr. Ernest E. Just Chautauqua-style, is about 35 minutes in length. As Dr. Ernest E. Just, he tells the story of how the doctor succeeded as a research biologist working at the Woods Hold Marine Biology Lab in Massachusetts from 1909 to 1930 while also heading the Zoology … Read more

The Medical University of South Carolina: An Interactive History

This lecture tells the story of the largest medical school in the south, M.U.S.C., whose 19th century origins played a significant role in the history of Charleston, the U.S. South, and American medical education. The rich history of the medical school touches on matters of race, medical experimentation, innovative surgery, nursing, and public health.

South Carolina’s Medical Past

From its earliest inception as a European settlement, South Carolina has been a hotbed of both infectious disease and for innovative approaches to curbing disease and establishing public health. This lecture focuses on the fascinating history of medicine in South Carolina from the 17th to the 21st centuries.

Public Health and Pandemics in the Atlantic World

This presentation places in historical context the long history of how pandemics and epidemics of infectious disease have shaped the American history and the history of the Atlantic World. We will highlight the role of transatlantic slavery, the establishment of the plantation economy, and the last social and political impacts of disease on our world … Read more

COVID-19 in Historical Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has left us with a lot of questions about the role, the place, and repeated occurrence of new diseases. This lecture considers COVID-19 in light of several past pandemics, starting with the global spread of disease in the 19th century, turning to the decline of infectious diseases in the 20th century, and finally, the … Read more

The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties lives large in our imaginations: flappers, jazz, bathtub gin, gangsters — the 1920s were all that. But the 20s was also a time of tremendous prosperity for some and abject poverty for others, especially in the rural South. For the rising middle class, there were marvels to buy with the new installment … Read more

How Shirley Temple Saved America

The little actress was the nation’s top box office draw during the worst years of the Great Depression and helped Americans forget their troubles as she sang and danced away the troubles of the characters she played. She worked through her childhood, while her parents spent her money, but went on to successful later careers … Read more

Baptists and Bootleggers: Prohibition in the South

Many years before the production and sale of alcohol was banned in the United States by the Eighteenth Amendment, the forces of temperance waged political warfare with the purveyors of alcohol. Most Southern states went dry long before the rest of the country did, and as a result, had a ready-made pipeline of moonshine-makers and … Read more

How FDR Vanquished Polio

Few Americans remember that FDR, besides leading our country through the Great Depression and World War II, was also the founder of the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis, better known as the March of Dimes. This charity fought the terrible scourge of polio with both assistance to the stricken and research to find a vaccine, … Read more

The Marriage of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt

One of the first true “power couples,” the Roosevelts were leaders of tremendous influence in the twentieth century, leading America for 12 tumultuous years, from 1933 to 1945. Eleanor Roosevelt is usually credited with creating the role of the modern First Lady. However, their marriage was a difficult one, marked by betrayal, bitterness and anger—right … Read more